When he was 8 years old, Wang's family moved to New York City. Graduating from Queens College with a B.S. in mathematics in 1967, Wang became a programming trainee at Columbia University's Riverside Research Institute. In 1976 he co-founded a computer software company, Computer Associates, Inc., serving as CEO until 2000, and chairman of the board until 2002. Within 20 years Computer Associates had become the third largest software company in the world, with assets of $25 billion in the late 1990s. Wang has become a philanthropist, donating money to the State University of New York at Stony Brook to establish an Asian American Cultural Center and is also principal owner of the N.Y. Islanders of the National Hockey League.